Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-03-25_MONDAY_8AM

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Dr. Powers with the latest Where Past Meets Present - How Yreka came to be, and I reprise the Cliff Bentz interview from earlier in the show, emails of the day, too.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Dr. Dennis Powers, retired professor of business law, friend of the program. Gosh, how many years we've been doing our segments here where past meets present, Doc? Welcome back. Oh, actually, you know, Bill, actually for us, it's heading into 14, but you and I have worked together for over 20. That's what I thought. What a long time.

Of course, I've been doing talk radio since 9-11 of 01, just as a news person, then for a while, but we've been doing talk for sure, at least, I guess it'll be 22 years total this year. Yeah, interesting history. All right. Let us dig into, I just love this story, because we're going to be going into a series of Where Past Meets Present. And by the way, that's the name of Dr. Powers' latest book. You can find out more at dennispowersbooks.com.

And it's also still available on Hellgate Press, the area publisher for this, too, hellgatepress.com. And this has to do with, we're going to be talking about how towns formed around here. And today, Wairika wins the golden ticket, right? It does, Bill. And where we're so fortunate is that it gives us a good roadmap as to how towns started, continued on, flourished, others dropped by the wayside. So in your own talking to the listeners and yourself, of course, for those of you, you can see how your town fits in with the overall. And Wairika was really a very interesting story. It is 175 years ago, Bill, that we had a very early 1851 discovery of gold, and the first discovery, this is California, just over the border, that it was on the Scott River.

But in mid-March of that year, Abraham Thompson, who then became a very wealthy man... I imagine so, especially given what he found, right? Oh, and the story itself just resonates, Bill, because he was a mule train packer, and he was leading six men from Oregon across the Siskiyou Trail to...he was going to go for the find that was a little south of present-day Huayrica, but a heavy rainstorm came down. And so I was just thinking about the weather bill that we have gone through, you know, here in March, and thinking about that in terms of, you know, moving back that number of decades. So they hunkered down for the night, heavy rainstorm, heavy, and it was about a quarter mile from what

is now downtown Huayreca. In the morning, the heavy rains had deeply soaked the ground, even though they had found nothing there before. He was just watching his pack mules the next morning, and I can just see this. You know, you're cold, you're trying to get some hot coffee, get a fire going, it's really miserable out. And all of a sudden you look over to see how the mules are doing, your pack animals, and guess what? You're finding out that they're pulling out branch grass by the roots to eat with flecks of gold on the roots. So there is gold in them thar roots, right? Yeah, my friend, in large quantities. So the word soon went out, and just in a couple of months, you had 2,000 miners living there.

And they were calling this the richest square mile on earth at that time, weren't they, at that point? They were, and it was, because all of a sudden you had 2,000 miners with gold in large, large quantities. You even had some shanties and a few rough cabins that came in. And then, Bill, in five months, you had 5,000 people there, because you had the 49ers that had come down into Sacramento, but no one had really gone into and thought about Oregon. And you think about how, you know, at that time, there was no real town.

You just had 5,000 people. It was kind of a big camp, really, is what you're talking about. It wasn't really a city-city at that point, was it? Well, it wasn't a city-city in that sense, but on the other hand, you had different types of functions going up, including merchants that came to sell goods. They were trading in gold. They had their own little community going. But then a year later, what we had was that the California territorial government then came into existence, and they set up what was then Shasta, but then the name was changed to Wairika, for this place to be a permanent city and to also be the county seat for Siskiyou County, which is one of the largest counties in all of California. And so it changed in just a few years from this boisterous, as you're pointing out so well, gold rush town into a permanent city with laws and governance. You had stage lines from and to

Oregon, courthouses built, hospital, church, school. And this continued on. But then when the gold played out, the population was down to 1,100. And you had this huge fire that came in 20 years later in 1871. And what was interesting on that one is the fact that although you had a number of the city and the city center that was destroyed by fire, you had all these residents around it, the old Victorian homes that you can see now when you go in that were built. And that's why you see the numerous brick buildings that today line Miner Street. Yeah, they were kind of a fan of rebuilding with brick for that reason, after the big fire, right? Is that one of the reasons? Yeah, that also happened in Denver and other cities and such.

When they had major fires, they would rebuild in brick. And then, of course, we had the state of Jefferson that happened in 1941. We're fast-forwarding. Farming, timbering, and ranching replaced the mining. But what happens, though, is that now there's 7,825 residents today, tourism, recreational interests. But the key thing here for Wairika is that it just said, you know, miners, if you want to find gold, no one has come into Oregon. And so from Wairika, you had a connection that was going in as Ashland then started. And then also you had miners that were then coming in to get into Crescent City so that they could then get on the trail, and that's where you had the Jacksonville finds.

I mean, gold was actually a big developer of southern Oregon and out on the coast, right? It was. Gold was, but then you had other things that you needed for permanence. One was where did the railroad go? Because towns, even with gold finds, just went and dwindled into the wind. Well, you know, in those days, the railroad was the equivalent of the Internet, right? You had to have it if you were going to be anybody, right? That's the way it was. That's true, because then 30 years later, that was how Medford, which was just like Wairika all the way back then, was just a flats with tumbleweed. And it was really created by the railroad that came in then. really stands out to me is that all of this makes sense when we step back and take a look

at individual towns that started and didn't do it. And here we had Huayrica that has its history, this pioneer town with a lot of crabtree that began her career there. And according to the stories, my friend, the lonely miners threw thousands of dollars worth of gold nuggets onto the stage after a performance. And so in any event, Wairika was... And there was no tax on tips then, right? You just throw the gold nugget on stage, that's all that mattered. Yeah, and whoever could go ahead and get it was theirs. You didn't have the government saying, it's mine. Exactly.

You know, now, the name of Wairika was actually, you said here, and I didn't realize this, because at first I was thinking Wairika was a variation of, like, perhaps Eureka, like, Eureka, I found it, you know, that kind of thing. But Wairika is actually what the Native American tribes named Shasta. Mount Shasta, was that where that came from? Excellent point, and you're 100% on the nail on that one. It was first called Thompson's Dry Diggings, and then it was, then when you had all the numbers of people there, it was Shasta Butte City. But there's another town called Shasta in the area, as you're pointing out. So then the city, when it was then designated to be the county seat, said, well, okay, what we're going to do is we'll change the name to Wairika.

I always thought that, too. And you're right, that was the local Indian name for Mount Jess. Now, do we know which tribe that was? Because the reason I bring this up is that I read the book Captain Jack, you know, Captain Jack, the Native American chief who ended up taking the Modoc tribe into the hills and essentially resisted the United States Army there for quite some time as they were having it out with the Klamath tribes and various other things. Was that a Modoc name or was it a Klamath name? Do we know? You know, when we checked into it, the best we could find on that particular question is that it was the local Indian name.

And when we get into the tribes that were there, you know, there's three different tribes that circulate throughout. Well, the reason I brought that up is that in that book they were talking about how the Modoc tribes were actually quite friendly with the miners and the tradespeople of Huayrica. And I thought maybe it was them or another tribe. I wasn't sure. Yeah, and you know what was funny about that is that when you go back in terms of where I-5 finally came over, but before those times, you had different stories that came out as to which tribes really worked, you know, with the settlers and with the people they were going. And then all of a sudden would change when the rogue Indian War started. So you're right, it would be more likely the Modoc.

But at this point in time, we're going with the fact that it came from, and this might be a way of tracking it down, which I was looking into the other day, is the fact that the local Indian name for Mount Shasta of Wairika was North Mountain. North Mountain. Okay, yeah, makes sense. North Mountain. And so I didn't have much success on that. But on the other hand, what we have is Wairika, 175 years later, the county seat, is a place that, when you think about it it didn't have a railroad that came in there. So why did it continue the way it did, my friend?

And the reason is, is that where it was, was really the last really good place north of what then became Redding. And that was the place where you had gold, you had water, you had a county seat, and they could get a spur later that connected with the overall railroad, and so it's here now. All right. I really enjoy these times when we talk about the founding, how our various towns came to be, and they're always great, great stories, especially how where mining and resource extraction ended up being a big part of it early, and then different things usually took over after the resources would play out or the mining, right?

You know, Bill, that's a good point, because even when we then go into the state of Jefferson, you know, when I first got here over three decades ago, I was saying, where in the heck is the state of Jefferson? Well, that was the one where Wairika came into national prominence as the temporary state capital, because as you're pointing out, the rural counties were really upset, my friend, about the lack of roads for timbering, resource allocation, and mining. And so you had the counties that were lining up that were rural and said that we're going to secede from the United States, and we're going to be called the State of Jefferson. But then two weeks later, you had World War II and the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. And that pretty much shut that down.

Yeah, everybody. And then it comes up now and then as we see where Salem is just out of sync with the rest of us. And that's why now they're kind of turning their attention to greater Idaho. And we'll have to talk about that another time. Hey, Doc, you know, since so much of this was about gold, I couldn't help but notice here, a great time to talk about our sponsor here, J Jay Austin & Company in Ashland and Grants Pass. It's just appropriate time to kind of sandwich that in. And the all-time in dollar price of gold was hit just a few days ago,

$29.55, $56, somewhere in that neighborhood. All-time. That was the future price. Now, it's given back in that neighborhood. All time. That was the future price. Now, it's given back a little bit since that time. And it's trading at about $28.88 at the moment, about $50, $60 bucks down. So maybe you're looking at this as a chance of maybe adding to your gold holdings, or maybe you would like to sell, too. And Jay Austin & Company and Ashland & Grants Pass can certainly help you with this. They are supporters of Talk Radio, and they want toin and company and ashland and grants pass can certainly help you with this they are supporters of talk radio and they want to buy your coins and scrap gold and if you want to sell now's as good a time as any collectible coin values along with gold and silver or way up

but recognize experts just to get in touch with jay austin 1632 ashland street in ashland sixth and g in downtown grants pass and 482-3715. They're a supporter of Talk Radio, like I mentioned, and good people to know whether you're looking to buy and or sell. I know the big boys right now, central banks, they're buying the gold. Maybe you should be buying the gold one way or the other, but whether you want to buy or sell, Jay Austin will help you do this. JayAustinBrokers.com, GrantsPassCoins.com. And you can also buy onlineustinbrokers.com, grantspasscoins.com, and you can also buy online

at fortunereserve.com. This is Brent with Home & Built Deck & Fence. Many customers in the Rogue Valley ask why winter is a great time for deck, fence, and siding projects. The answer? Faster scheduling, quicker completion, and better prices than next spring.

Don't wait. Schedule your free consultation now. Home & Built provides top-notch design, quality craftsmanship, and exceptional service. You work hard year-round, We'll be right back. At Grover Electric and Plumbing, service is everything. To back it up, this comment from one of our Grover customers in Boise. At Grover, they listened. We had an unusual problem, but they quickly put together a solution. Saved us a lot of running around and money. Boy, did we appreciate that. This from a Vancouver customer.

After not getting the help and information we needed elsewhere, we heard about Grover. Glad we did. Great knowledge, great service. From now on, Grover gets all our business. From Klamath Falls, this comment. We are very regular customers at Grover with good reason. No matter the day, the time, the season, or how busy they are, we get the help we need, are treated respectfully, and served quickly. If this sounds like the kind of customer service you're looking for, welcome to Grover. For a location near you, visit groverelectric.com. The Best of Southern Oregon Magazine is back for its third incredible season.

As the region's premier showcase of excellence, this event celebrates the best of the best businesses and organizations as voted by you, our community. Nominations for the Best of Southern Oregon began on March 12th. Join us in honoring the outstanding talent, innovation, and dedication that make our region shine. The Best of Southern Oregon 2025 is proudly presented by Dusty's Transmissions and by Coastal Media.

The Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. 8.32, Dr. Powers, you're the keep us up on the latest homeless housing situation. This is where the president at this moment and there is such political juice being pushed in mostly by the democrats right now to really build up the housing the homeless housing industrial complex would that be a fair assessment of what we're looking at this yeah yeah very much so uh This state astounds me because I have friends that I've known for years who never voted for a republic in their life. And even though they did not vote for Trump in this past election, both of them have with their families and two, have moved out of the state saying the state's nuts. And the reason is, it's another example, Bill.

If it wasn't enough for the wildfire interface zone that Salem put in. Yes, the wildfire map, which, and there is talk that they will repeal that. There's been a lot of pushback, lots of pushback, which is a good thing, I think. But yeah, it seems to be all part of the same leverage, bringing disorder into our communities. I don't know. I think, Bill, it's the same dysfunctionalism. It's the fact that they can't work their way to get into Washington with Trump's victory. And so here they're in this small state where they have a supermajority, and there's no check on the idiocy that they come up with,

where Jeff Golden was on record on the wildfire interface saying, we just didn't really expect the pushback. And I thought, Jeff yeah are you kidding me but on this this next one that came out i just i i actually told this friend of mine who's now in idaho and he said yeah yeah we couldn't get out of that state fast enough you know philosophically is this all about just furthering the revolution and one of the ways you do this is to break down the middle class by attacking their ability to – I don't know if they're that bright that they actually look at it this way. But when you are going to coddle and foster and make it ever easier for parasitic classes and groups of people to take root and suck resources from the more productive classes. Isn't there a case to be made that this is just part of the standard progressive playbook?

Yeah, you know, that's the end result. That's one of the end results. My way of looking at it, slightly different, is follow the money. And when we follow the money, there's two aspects to the far left where they're so out of touch with the rest of the country. One is the fact that Soros has bought a number of them, either the monies that came in in different ways. And actually, Bill, you brought that up on a couple of the the elections that we had where money from soros was there swimming around oh yeah uh and so that's one of them uh and the second thing is is fear because the far left has created a class that supports them for the homeless

transgender all these things. And they can't pull away. Well, that's what I was getting at. It's like it is the complete fealty and support of the island. I've termed it the island of misfit humans. You know, whatever malady you have, you know, we got money for you. We got NGOs for you, which is all part about that self-licking ice cream comment of political success, I guess, right? Oh, I like that, self-licking ice cream. And you're right.

And the other thing on the fear factor is we're seeing it when we connect the dots. For example, in Boston, Massachusetts, Chick-fil-A, where you had an off-duty policeman who shot and protected people there, a knife-wielding person who had chased two others in there. Yeah, didn't the mayor then come out and was, oh, this is so sad about the knife-wielding perp, right? That's right. She gave her condolences to the family of the killer, the would-be killer who was shot.

And I said, why would they do that? Well, I've been back in Boston, and I have friends still there. And, you know, when I talk to them, the crazy thing about it is one of them said it's the fear factor. They do not want to have their state house picketed. Well, I guess the answer then here, though, is that the answer must be no with Tina's bill. It has to be no. I'm afraid it's not going to be, given the makeup, because I've even noticed that there are so-called reasonable Republicans that will sign on to this kind of nonsense.

Well, the problem there, and the reason why I just looked at this and I said, honey, we have too many friends here to leave, but boy, if something was going to put me over the edge, this would do it. It was the fact that the $218 million over two years for COTEC to ask the legislator to create a, quote, statewide homeless shelter system. And everything that the state creates as far as a system is always efficient and effective at getting rid of the homeless problem, like everything else they've done so far. Well, the homeless problem, to give you an idea, is less than 5% of all the people, that's by a federal biased study, you know, statewide of our 4 million people.

But the thing, Bill, that really got me is that it's appointing regional coordinators who are responsible for creating annual plans for their region. Why doesn't that not sound like a Sovietization? That sounds like a Soviet apparatchik kind of thing. Am I wrong about that? It's what it feels like. We're going to have coordinators, homeless coordinators. What is it?

And you're right. And it gets worse because in overseeing the implementation of a statewide sheltering strategy to receive funding, shelters have got to get an okay from one of these regional administrators. Now, I just checked. I did not know this. We have 36 counties in Oregon. So you're going to have 36 different administrators coming in who will solely go ahead and be the apparatus, if you will, for homeless as to a statewide approach. And here's what really gets me, is that the individual state, the state is going to be divided, Bill, into regions none smaller than a single county. So you might have some counties that have more than one coordinator. Like Multnomah, let's say, for example. 40-plus regional coordinators for the homeless that will be empowered to come back.

Now, just think about, as I was thinking about the mess that happened here in Ashland, in terms of where the city council boot-snapped themselves into 2100 Ashland Street, which was, they went ahead and said, oh, we're going to work a deal with the state, and we're going to go ahead and buy this. They buy it right next to a school, a private school, and then they find out they can't put anyone in because it doesn't meet code. Yeah. This must be resisted at all costs, I think, really, because this is not going to be about solving the homelessness crisis. When it comes right down to it, Dr. Powers, anybody with half a modicum of common sense knows that about 80% of the homelessness issues that we're experiencing here are drug and alcohol addiction. There you go.

That's it. Bingo. And until you are approaching that aspect of it, whether it is forced commitment for people that find themselves in these sort of situations, everything else is just window dressing or window dressing. Okay. And whether they're county supervisors or at the city council of Medford, whatever it is, regardless of your political affiliation, you've got to take notice about this, because when the state then comes in through TINA and goes ahead and says, well, according to this new state shelter system we have, we don't agree with your putting in only two, like, let's say it's Grants Pass. Yeah, yeah, they're going after them for only two camps.

And when it comes right down to it, people who are addicted can't really be mixing it up with the people who are unaddicted, all right? I'll tell you what. That's right. And they're single men with drug-addicted problems, and yet, like in Grant's past, which I couldn't believe, the activists there are bringing in disability law to try to force that area to do what they want. And so this is a false use of disability law, isn't it?

Because if you are drug addicted, this is a self-disability. You have disabled yourself. You are not technically disabled. You have chosen to be disabled. Oh, agreed. But you see, with the lawfare that we saw against President Trump and the communists that were appointed by Biden as chief fundraisers to the appellate court and the federal district court system are going ahead with TROs, temporary restraining orders, even though their district is maybe only involves five out of 5,000 people that they're putting an injunction down. Yeah, all right. Hey, Doc, we'll keep an eye on this and continue to keep an eye on it, and we'll discuss more next week then, if that's

okay with you, all right? We'll do that. Oh, Bill, I'd love to, and I got to tell you, though, it's always fun to talk about Wairika and things like this. And also, the work that you're doing, I'm just thinking really quickly, do you have plans to head out sometime to Washington, D.C. and do your annual interviews out there? I don't know if we're going to be going there this year. It's all up to Federation for American Immigration Reform. I'll be talking with him this week. I'll get back with you on that, okay?

Thank you. Oh, I'll tell you, keep up all the good work. We need you, bud. All right. Thank you, Doctor, and I appreciate your work, too. It is 842. If you ended up missing Congressman Cliff Bence's talk, I had him on when I first got on the air this morning,

and it was pretty early. I know not everyone is up at 6 o'clock, ODARCark 600 but i will replay part of that interview here just a moment just so you keep up on what is happening in dc too okay for over four decades dusty's transmissions has been your visit fewdogsfab.com hi this is mark from jay austin and i'm on kmed it's 8 45 wanted to make sure that you had a chance if you missed it earlier this morning, the conversation with Congressman Cliff Betts. He's in D.C. this morning. See if I can get that going. If I could get it going again, which means play.

I know it's there. Anybody yelling at you this morning here, Congressman? Welcome back to the show. Good to have you on. No. No one's been yelling at me yet, Bill. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. Hey, before we talk about some of the things that have been going on in your town hall here, what is your overall impression of the Ukraine-Zelensky-Trump dust-up on Friday?

I actually heard something a little different than maybe some other people did, but I'm kind of wondering how it's playing in Washington, D.C. right now. Well, I think it's safe to say that the Democrats are saying that it was a disaster, that Zelensky was mistreated, and that President Trump and Vice President Vance were mean to him, and so forth. That's kind of the Democrat line. The rest of us, it's probably a bit mixed because it just happened today and everyone's been gone. My thought, for what it's worth, is that it appeared to me the president and the vice

president were trying to remind the president of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky, that the U.S. was interested in bringing the war to an end and that it was time to recognize his position of being really challenged when it comes to having enough men to fight the war because they don't. Yeah, I thought it was a realistic approach that the trump administration was taking it's like you know i i think that the talk was originally sold as a peace talk but it didn't turn into that apparently is that kind of where you're coming from it's what i heard on friday it was a i think it was a meeting to talk about the possibility of the united states acquiring mineral rights uh from ukraine. And for various reasons, I think Zelensky had already decided he wasn't going to sign the agreement without a promise that we would

back Ukraine with more money and probably more boots on, or some boots on the ground. We haven't put any men there, women there yet. I don't want to, but I'm guessing that that's what he was angling for. Yeah, I'd imagine so. You know, the one part of want to, but I'm guessing that that's what he was angling for. Yeah, I'd imagine so. You know, the one part of the talk which I thought actually did stick with me, and I didn't hear a lot of people talking about it, I don't know if you caught it either, in which Zelensky actually told an uncomfortable truth in which he said, you know, you have a big, beautiful ocean, you know, between you and that protecting you, but you will feel someday. And then Trump says, well, no, you can't tell me what we're going to feel i actually thought that that was uh even though you know like i said i disagree with about everything else that zielinski was it was talking about to mention that

uh you know we're in a time now where oceans don't necessarily you know protect us from uh you know hypersonic missiles drone attacks uh cyber cyber attacks, those sort of things. It could be a different kind of military and defense situation we're in these days. Did you catch that? Just curious. I did catch that. I would say that Zelensky has firsthand knowledge over many years of the incredible danger that Putin presents to his country, of course, and to Europe, and eventually the United States. So I think the core principle has always been, and this is why we've invested so much money in Ukraine,

is that we'd rather have them fighting against a person of Putin's nature than us. And so the challenge now, though, is having reached this particular point, maybe better settle before the situation blows completely out of control. And I think that's what President Trump was pointing out when he mentioned World War III. Yeah. And I don't think there's anyone is thinking that, you know, and I hear Europe talking about, we want Ukraine to be able to negotiate from a position of strength. I think it's kind of an impossibility unless you were to completely throw World War III kind of resources at it. What would you say, honestly?

Well, so I would say that Trump probably had a number of things in mind in this meeting. One was he wanted to force Europe to ramp up its support for Ukraine, and he succeeded. That's exactly what's happening. France and England and others are now saying, hey, we better put some more money into this, and they're the ones that should be doing the most to try to help. I think he also, President Trump, recognized that a mineral deal with Ukraine would be a good thing and might slow Putin down if we had American miners out there mining away. And he also has been, I think, softening, President Trump has, his posture, and I just mean posture, not reality, toward Russia. And again, all of these things were to

try to get Putin to come to the table. And so I thought it was him, our president, doing his best to remind Zelensky of the reality of the situation and at the same time try to figure out how to get people back to the table. Yeah. And you don't have the cards when he was saying that. It's like, yeah. And he also should have worn a suit. This is kind of an aside, though. He should have worn a suit this is kind of an aside though he should have won a suit don't you think worn a suit just because if he really well i probably am not going to comment too much on how uh people address but i'll just say yeah well it's kind of it's kind of like you know your your cranium john fetterman we'll just kind of set that aside here at the moment all right hey congressman you have been holding some town halls you're

going to be holding a town hall in southern oregon here too uh more what not this week but next week week after this one and uh you've been having some interesting experiences in which people kind of uh getting all hissy fitted and about with with budget cuts and i was looking i was reading in the oregonian about this in which at one point you kind of got exasperated and say hey listen if you just came to yell yeah you just you just want me to leave you know that kind of thing and i can understand that frustration and i remember congressman greg walden facing uh similar crowds even in medford and i remember it was the uh the gray pony tailed indivisible crowd a number of years ago. They wouldn't even let him talk. Was it that kind of situation or a little bit different?

Why don't you set the table? I'm kind of curious what's going on out there on the field. Right. So we had four town halls. One was in Baker City. We had about 210 people. One was in the Grand. We had close to 600 people.

One was in Pendleton. We had about 340 people. And then at the Port of M had close to 600 people. One was in Pendleton, we had about 340 people. And then when we got to Port Amaro, about 170 people. Many of those people were the same people at each meeting. They had just gotten their car and drove to the next meeting and then showed up. Many of the people were there to yell and protest and demonstrate, which in part is what a town hall meeting is for. But on the other hand, is what a town hall meeting is for. Sure. But on the other hand, I think a town hall meeting is a lot of people come to them to listen and hear from the congressman what's actually going on.

And it's kind of irksome, I think, to them as other people are yelling and screaming and carrying on. And it's really, really not very productive when it comes to sharing your thinking or my thinking and explaining as best I can why we're taking certain positions. So I thought that the shouting and the yelling, once you make your point, you should probably sit down and let me go ahead and answer questions. So it's my hope that when we come down to Southern Oregon, we'll have an opportunity to at least share the thinking that's gone into the positions I've been taking for the people I represent. How would you break it down, though? Because, I mean, yeah, you even represent the district for the indivisible types like that I saw screaming at Greg Walden.

But what they were doing was not particularly productive, I guess. And is this just an example of organized making you uncomfortable in the second district? I mean, not that you're able to handle it, but you're just like wondering, if they're going from meeting to meeting to meeting, that strikes me as being organized noisemaking, but I could be wrong. Any thoughts on that? Oh, no, you are not wrong. You are totally right. In fact, what they would do is hold pre-meetings, and they would hand out scripts for people to ask questions. In fact, they even gave some of the script to one of my team, thinking that he was part of their organized group. And when I say group, it's a lot of folks. I'm going to guess between

50 and 100 folks that were holding scripts, and when their number was called, they would read a prepared question from that script. So yeah, it was totally organized. And how many of those people were actually constituents? I really don't know. I'm going to guess some were and many weren't, but who knows? The main thing that was discouraging about it is the people that did come in to hear about some of the really, really, really important issues we're working on were robbed of that opportunity, so I felt badly for them. What's an example of some of those issues that you are working on that the 2nd District's going to care about? Well, I think the one that probably drew the most attention is Medicaid. And I want to say clearly that Medicaid is

indispensable. It's a lifeline for lots of people in my district. And by the way, this is Oregon Health Plan is how we know it in the state of Oregon. I'm sorry, Oregon Health Plan, forgive me. And about 40% of the people that live in Congressional District 2, my district, are on Medicaid. And I just want to say, and we, in our job, my job is to make sure that that program remains effective and is preserved. But at the same time, it's been growing totally out of control. I think it grew 9% during the Biden administration in last year's. And this kind of growth is not fiscally sustainable, not either at the federal level or at the state of Oregon level. As a matter of fact, that's something that... Here were the two combined. Welcome to

the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. Hey, appreciate you listening this morning. Before we take off, and Mark Lee VanCamp and Robbins showing up here, it's going to be some emails of the day. Emails of the day sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson and Central Point Family Dentistry. CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. While you wait, crowns are really available there. It's great. They have an in-house lab.

To find out more, it's on Freeman Way right next to Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant, CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. A lot of people writing this morning about the dust-up with Zelensky and Trump from Friday. And Pat writes, Bill, regarding the Zelensky failed meeting and those making noise about it, we know the left are frightened as to what is going to be revealed. They think the rhetoric, their rhetoric will make a difference and are afraid the empire they built will come crashing down. And it will. Nothing evil is sustainable.

God's on our side. And I'm getting my popcorn ready and I am anxious to watch the show. Trump's leadership has made me a proud American again. All right. Appreciate your writing on this one. Let me go to let me see uh randy writes hey bill zelensky rolled into town thinking it would be business as usual get big check and leave sorry z man you're not dealing with the biden administration anymore all you did was leave

with a reality check although to be fair here randy there is talk that they're going to get that redone and doobie says on the ukraine, a friend of mine says he has conservative co-workers who voted for Trump. They both feel embarrassed about the way he dealt with Zelensky. So embarrassed they wish they hadn't voted for him. They don't think we should be going after the minerals deal.

Why are we kicking Ukraine when they're at their lowest point? They also think that the U.S. is trying to recoup some of the money we've given to Ukraine, but the other countries that have contributed would get nothing back. I don't agree with this logic at all. What is your thought on this?

Well, I'm with you. I don't agree with this logic at all. And finally, a couple of fun things here. My fat cat, Charlie, got a fat cat and a thin cat. How do I get the fat cat thinner without making the skinny cat skinnier? And Terry says, hey, Bill, we once had a very fat cat. The vet even told us we needed to put him on a diet. Then he said, good luck. By the way, there are pet feeding dishes that slow down the eating, but we cat owners know a hungry cat can show total displeasure in many ways.

Ours would actually pout. But Betty said, hey, Bill, start feeding them together. And then when the thin one is done eating, take away the dish for both of them. Betty, I might try that. That might be a low-tech way of solving it, okay? The email bill at billmyershow.com. Tomorrow, of course, it's going to be a pebble in your shoe Tuesday. We'll have plenty of good conversation. Email bill at billmyershow.com, okay? This is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KB.